The Technological Transformation of Russian Conventional Fires

ABSTRACT

Russia’s Armed Forces have long struggled in combat operations to fix and locate enemy targets and follow up with precision strikes. The new Reconnaissance-Fire System (ROS) allows combined-arms units to conduct operations in real time and greatly increases the speed and accuracy of Russian fires on the future battlefield. This process has already made significant progress, with its future development earmarked as a high priority in Moscow’s defense planning. The ROS is a network-centric capability offering vastly enhanced target acquisition and strikes across the range of Russian systems capable of targeting ground targets and especially benefits artillery systems. This article examines the evolution of the concept of the ROS and the progress towards its development but does not assess the problems and challenges its use encountered in the Russia-Ukraine War that began in February 2022.

KEYWORDS:

• Reconnaissance-Fire System; network-centric capability; precision strikes; Russian fires; combined-arms

Introduction

Within a very short timescale in terms of Russia’s military history, Moscow has overseen a complex conceptual and modernization process to technologically transform the capability of its Armed Forces to conduct accurate fires on the modern battlefield in real time. This transformation has been long in the making, drawing as it does upon Soviet-era military theory in terms of the concepts of the Reconnaissance-Strike Complex and Reconnaissance-Fire Complex; these reflected the thinking underlying Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov’s Revolution in Military Affairs, which centered on moving away from over-reliance on nuclear weapons to create high-precision conventional strike options with a fusion of fire-detection and fire delivery.¹ This article examines the theory and development of this capability. However, it does not assess its use in the Russia-Ukraine war since February 2022.

The Soviet military traditionally compensated for its challenges and weaknesses in fixing and locating the target with the application of mass fires. Since the reform introduced in late 2008, these approaches have given way to a modernized high-technology network-centric construct, which in the area of fires has produced greater speed and accuracy. In Russian military parlance ‘fires’ on the battlefield means any artillery or missile systems able to engage enemy ground targets.² The following analysis examines the roots and basis of this technological transformation, outlining how this fits into the reformed command and control (C2) architecture, the description of the modern Russian version of reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire, how this is unified technically through the introduction of modern digitized communications and furthered by artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. These factors have resulted in an overall aggregate marked improvement in the speed and accuracy of a range of fires on the modern and future battlefield; a process that exponentially benefits Russian artillery systems.³

Acting both as the bedrock and facilitator in this technological advance to immensely improve the accuracy of Russian fires on the battlefield, is the reform C2 system, designed to fit these subsystem breakthroughs. Over the past decade, Russia’s Armed Forces have benefited from the design and procurement of several automated C2 systems across its arms and branches of service.⁴ How do these interface and link into the subsystems affording a massive increase in the accuracy of fires? How do these automated C2 systems bring the accuracy of operational and tactical level fires to the level of overall strategic control and facilitate operations in real time? These issues are briefly outlined to provide context for the system providing the actual improvement in fires.⁵

Dove-tailed into this reformed and digitized system of C2, which lends itself to a Russian variant of C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance), is the integrated system offering the capability for Russian military fires to be conducted with higher speed in real time and with considerable accuracy.⁶ This system, new to Russia’s Armed Forces military capabilities, is explained and demonstrates the unique advances it offers and notes the extent to which it has been tried and tested in Russian military operations in Ukraine post-2014 and in Syria. Additionally, the technical means of communication in real time are discussed to identify the basis of the improved reconnaissance-fire system.⁷

The development and successful introduction of an integrated reconnaissance-fire system mark a significant advance in Russia’s military capabilities, offering as it does enhanced accuracy of fires and the ability to conduct operations in real time across a swathe of military conflict types, from low-intensity to local or regional and up to large-scale warfare with a peer adversary. Nevertheless, as will be established, this process is set to continue to witness further growth, development, and technological investment.⁸ The contours of this development are already identifiable as long-term modernization trends in further refining this system, especially through the application of AI and robotics.⁹ Combined, these developments synthesize reconnaissance and fires to offer greater lethality and accuracy. As the authors of an article in Armeskiy Sbornik in August 2018 note: ‘Armed conflict begins with reconnaissance. Experience shows that without reconnaissance−there is no information, without information −command and control is impossible, and without command and control − victory is impossible.’¹⁰

Russia’s reformed military command and control structure

A critical element in the exponential advance of Russia’s conventional military capabilities since the reform initiated in late 2008 has been the extent to which the Armed Forces have transitioned from a Soviet legacy force designed to fight a large-scale war in Europe and heavily dependent upon manpower mobilization, toward a small yet more lethal and flexible force. In so doing, the capabilities and the breadth of potential types of warfare that Russia’s reformed and modernized Armed Forces can deal with have not only greatly expanded, but harnessed modern advanced technologies to provide genuine integration of C4ISR.¹¹

A three-tiered simplified C2 structure was first trialed in June 2010 with a declared target of forming four new military districts/joint strategic commands (obyedinennyye strategicheskoye komandovanie — OSK) by 1 December 2010. The new districts/commands were formed on four strategic axes: West (headquarters in St. Petersburg), East (headquarters in Khabarovsk), Central (Yekaterinburg), and South (Rostov-on-Don). West MD/OSK was based on the Moscow and Leningrad MDs, and the Baltic and Northern Fleets. East MD/OSK comprised of the former Far East MD, the eastern part of Siberian MD, and the Pacific Fleet. Central MD/OSK included the western part of the Siberian MD and the Volga-Urals MD, while South MD/OSK merged the North Caucasus MD and the Black Sea Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla.¹² These command elements are essentially dual-hatted drawing from Western, Central, and Eastern MD/OSKs. On December 2020 a fifth OSK was formed: Northern Fleet OSK.

Moscow has experimented with and conducted network-centric operations during its involvement in the complex conflict in Syria.¹³ Central to this experimental process and lying at the heart of modernizing the conventional Armed Forces involves unifying C2 with reconnaissance and intelligence. The overall unifying ‘brain,’ since its creation in December 2014, is the National Defense Management Center (Natsionalnomu Tsentru Upravleniya Oboronoy – NTsUO), in Moscow. The NTsUO lies at the very epicenter of Russia’s burgeoning network-centric capability.²

The NTsUO acts as an information hub, to facilitate operations in real time. Its structure and role in these operations are detailed in an important article published by Zvezda Weekly. According to this article, the NTsUO is a unified system for managing ‘all military subunits in the Russian Armed Forces,’ and includes the nuclear triad. Since so much information passes through it daily, a computerized ‘expert system’ is used, for ‘monitoring and analyzing the military-political, socioeconomic, and sociopolitical situation in Russia and the world.’ The NTsUO unites all the automated C2 systems functioning across the Armed Forces. These include the Unified System for Command and Control at the Tactical Level (Yedinaya avtomatizirovannaya sistema upravleniya takticheskim zvenom – YeSU TZ), designed for the Ground Forces, with its various specific upgrades for the Military-Maritime Fleet (Voyenno-Мorskoy Flot – VMF) and the (Vozdushno Kosmicheskikh Sil – VKS); the VKS also uses a Metronom strike aviation automated C2. Additionally, the Andromeda-D system was created to suit the needs of the Airborne Forces (Vozdushno Desantnye Voyska − VDV). This overall unification of systems extends from the strategic level down to tactical-level communication systems. These automated C2 systems have been tested during operational-strategic exercises and in combat operations in Syria.¹⁴

The NTsUO includes three command-and-control centers uniting the various automated C2 systems: the Strategic Nuclear Forces Command and Control Center, the Combat Control Center, and a Center for Management of Day-to-Day control of troops (Figure 1). The Combat Control Center monitors the global military-political situation, assesses, and forecasts the emergence of threats to Russia and its allies, and supports C2 overall military force elements, including the non–defense ministry troops. According to the author of the Zvezda Weekly article, ‘[S]pace and aerial reconnaissance complexes are information sources for the Strategic Nuclear Forces Command and Control Center, and tactical reconnaissance and subunits of the SSO [Special Operations Forces] collect information for the TsBU [Battle Management Center] during combat operations’.¹⁵

Figure 1. The National Defense Management Center (NTsUO).¹⁵

Moreover, the Zvezda Weekly author noted that ‘Wide use of reconnaissance UAVs, and the introduction of Ratnik-2 combat gear and equipment, which includes the Strelets reconnaissance, command, control and communications (KRUS) complex, helped the effectiveness of operations by our field reconnaissance personnel.’ In operations in Syria, however, ‘Strelets KRUS ensured performance of missions of battle management, communications, data transmission, and individual and group navigation; detection, coordinate measurement, and recognition of targets; as well as guidance to a target. Information is transmitted from the KRUS interfaces with all Russian reconnaissance, surveillance, and target-designation complexes; [as well as] radars; rangefinders; clinometers; and UAVs’.¹⁶

At the technological core of the NTsUO is the single system of automated C2 Akatsiya-M. It has been in service with the military districts of Russia since 2005 and allows servicemen to be in a single information space − both in places of permanent deployment and when entering the field or during hostilities. Akatsiya-M is a military analog of the Internet, which provides operational-strategic and operational control of the Russian Armed Forces. In July 2019, the cost of introducing the system was reportedly 21 billion rubles. Operational-tactical and tactical control of forces is carried out by other complexes, such as YeSU TZ and Andromeda-D.¹⁷

In November 2019, Russia’s defense ministry announced a major breakthrough in automated C2, referring to the Battle Management Information System (Informatsionnaya Sistema Boyevogo Upravleniya – ISBU). Its breakthrough relates to unifying AI and Big Data technologies to analyze combat situations and provide through the automated C2 possible options for commanders in the field. The ISBU collects data from all services and sources and processes them and develops solutions within seconds. The various scenarios presented to the commander are ranked, starting with the most potentially successful. Consequently, this slashes the time an individual commander will spend making a decision and increases its accuracy. AI and Big Data technologies can be exploited with great efficiency, minimizing casualties, according to Denis Kuskov, the director general of the Telecom Daily analytical company. Kuskov noted:

Big Data technology makes it possible to transfer virtually unlimited amounts of data, including video, text, and graphic information. In battle, this data will come from military personnel, equipment, [and] various reconnaissance equipment, including unmanned aerial vehicles. All this will happen in real time. Using an artificial intelligence system, information will be instantly processed, synthesized, and analyzed. This will undoubtedly help the commander understand and decide how best to use the troops and resources.¹⁸

All these ASUs are intended for C2 over forces engaged in combat operations or peacekeeping and humanitarian operations, and also while in garrison. The ‘heart’ of these ASU systems is the ISBU, a subsystem of the ASU, which coordinates and analyzes the continuous exchange of data among the command posts, headquarters, and troops. Reconnaissance systems, including UAVs and satellites, have also reportedly been integrated into the system, permitting the collection of information about the enemy in near real time. This is especially significant when it comes to harnessing these structures, concepts, and modern technologies to vastly increase the accuracy of fires on modern and future battlefields. These changes, both in the organic structure of C2 and the application of high technology to digitize the system and subsystems from operational to tactical levels, are nowhere more apparent than in the transformation of the accuracy of fires, which particularly benefits Russian artillery systems.¹⁹

The Role of the Reconnaissance-Fire System (ROS)

Russia’s General Staff, drawing upon concepts and possible approaches toward future warfare developed in the late Soviet era, have devised their own conceptual variants of network-centric warfare. These harness and integrate similar, but different approaches to the Western conceptual understanding of the term. The Soviet concepts centering upon the destruction of high-value targets in near-real time involved the Reconnaissance-Strike Complex (Razvedyvatel’no-Udarnyy Kompleks−RUK) for the coordinated use of high-precision, long-range weapons linked to real-time intelligence and precise targeting provided by an integrated intelligence and fire-direction center. The RUK was envisaged to function at operational depths using surface-to-surface missile systems and aircraft-delivered ‘smart’ munitions. The Reconnaissance-Fire Complex (Razvedyvatel’no-Ognevoy Kompleks−ROK) was its tactical equivalent; linking intelligence, precise targeting, fire-direction center, and tactical artillery to strike high-value targets in near-real time.²⁰ More recently, following the reform of the Armed Forces launched in the fall of 2008, Moscow has rebranded these concepts as the Reconnaissance-Strike System (Razvedyvatel’no-Udarnyy Sistema−RUS) and the Reconnaissance-Fire System (ROS).²¹ The Reconnaissance-Fire System (Razvedyvatel’no-Ognevaya Sistema) has now been successfully deployed and combat-tested in Syria. RUS includes tube and rocket artillery but adds ballistic and cruise missiles, strike aviation, as well as ship and coastal naval fires.²²

The official Russian defense ministry definition of the Reconnaissance-Fire System (Razvedyvatel’no-Ognevaya Sistema) delineates its following components:

A set of forces and means of reconnaissance and destruction of the branches of the Armed Forces, combat arms, and special forces, united based on a unified automated control system, created to carry out fire impact on the enemy grouping and objects in real (close to real) time scale with high efficiency (required damage).²³

Another definition of the ROS is offered by Alexei Byabenin, the head of the control systems department at the Burevestnik Central Scientific Research Institute in Nizhniy Novgorod (part of Uralvagonzavod). Burevestnik is a key designer of Russian artillery systems. Burevestnik designed the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled gun, first displayed during the 2015 Moscow Victory Day Parade. Byabenin explains the ROS, referring to it with a fuller title: the Intellectual Reconnaissance-Fire System (Intellektual’naya Razvedyvatel’no-Ognevaya Sistema−IROS). In any case, the system he outlines is undoubtedly the ROS:

(Intellektual’naya Razvedyvatel’no-Ognevaya Sistema−IROS) is a fire engagement system that is used to make decisions on the destruction of targets using elements of artificial intelligence and possessing in the process functioning with the following properties:

• Continuous monitoring of the position and condition of the target being hit;

• Continuous monitoring of the state and progress of the fire mission by all participants;

• Real-time observation of target display and gaps in moments of impacting shells;

• Performance of all functions to defeat the target (information support process, calculations of the method of shelling, installations for shooting, and corrections for each tool) without human intervention;

• Optimization of the method of firing at targets, taking into account the limitations on ammunition and other resources.²⁴

The RUS, therefore, serves as the strategic level concept (though it can be applied to operational-tactical levels) and the ROS forms the operational-tactical version. In its entirety, the ROS provides the Combined-Arms Armies (CAA) with systems of fires, reconnaissance, automated C2, and all necessary support to conduct operational-tactical strikes in real time. The ROS is integrated into the automated C2, outlined above, functioning within the reformed and modernized C2 architecture. The ROS of the Missile and Artillery Troops (Raketnyye Voyska i Artilleriya – RV&A) functions at every level of the CAA commands (combined arms army, tank army, army corps, division, brigade, regiment or battalion tactical group). Critically important in the functioning of the ROS is the Strelets intelligence management and communications complex (Kompleks Razvedki Upravleniya i Svyazi – KRUS).²⁵ These aspects of the ROS are further detailed by Bartles and Grau:

The aggregated Reconnaissance-Fire Systems (ROS) of the combined arms armies are equipped with advanced systems of fires, reconnaissance, automated command and control, and support for conducting operational strikes and tactical fires. These can be integrated into a common combined arms automated command and control system, a hybrid Reconnaissance Destruction System (RPS) [Razvedyvatel’no-Porazhayushuyu Sistemu] for real-time effective fire engagement of the enemy. The Artillery Troop’s ROS has a modular configuration within the combined arms force. The module includes command and control elements and forces that are capable of performing relatively independent fire engagement missions against enemy targets. The ROS modules at each level of combined arms command (combined arms army, tank army, army corps, division, brigade, regiment, or battalion tactical group), include an artillery command post linked to a reconnaissance command post or artillery reconnaissance command post and the ROS command and control center. These elements likely interface through the Strelets reconnaissance, command and control, and communications system (KRUS).

The ROS command post is included in the command post of the chief of artillery for the combined arms force at each level. Its real-time missions include: receipt and analysis of target data, the status of subordinate force elements, terrain data, hydro-meteorological data on the target areas, and other information necessary for the execution of missions; planning and coordination of the actions of forces and means of engagement; and command and control of strikes and fire. At the same time, forces and assets of organic and attached artillery are integrated horizontally (among themselves at the same level of command and control − in the module) and vertically (among forces and assets of different echelons of command and control − among modules of different combined arms force elements), forming reconnaissance, command and control, fire engagement, and support subsystems of the combat arm’s ROS. These forces and assets of ROS subsystems must be integrated with similar forces and assets of other branches and combat arms by a common interbranch RPS of the combined arms formation.²⁶

The ROS is designed to function at an operational-tactical level as part of the Russian variant of network-centric warfare, facilitating the conduct of combat operations in real-time. This system and its various subsystems are very heavily dependent upon advanced technology, and while progress has been made in the development of the ROS in recent years, its long-term prospects are equally tied to continued modernization and adaption, particularly drawing upon experimental lessons learned from its combat debut during Russian operations in Syria since September 2015 and testing in strategic level military exercises.²⁷ Although the ROS includes several different sources of high-accuracy fires within the individual CAA, the clear primary beneficiary in this modernized and high-technology-based set of concepts and approaches to combat operations is the artillery elements located in the Raketnyye Voyska i Artilleriya−RViA (Missile and Artillery Troops) and the maneuver divisions/brigades.²⁸

Traditionally, of course, artillery has been the mainstay for Soviet and Russian Ground Forces operations; in modern operation artillery fires can account for up to 70 percent of all fires brought to the theater of military operations. The famous dictum from the Soviet wartime leader during the Great Patriotic War (1941-45) Joseph Stalin, ‘artillery is the god of modern war’ (artilleriya – bog sovremennoy voyny), still holds true in modern Russian approaches towards conducting military conflict.²⁹ Bartles and Grau emphasize the historical role played by artillery in Russian military combat operations, and explain the critical role played by the ROS at the Army Group level, to division, brigade, and battalion echelons, while also offering the estimate that the ROS may reach fuller maturity by 2025:

The ROS will be the main subsystem of the proposed RPS due to the preponderance of tactical missions and the presence of multiple, detected, immediate threats. Based on historical experience, artillery will handle 50-70 percent or more of the overall fire missions. In the combined arms army, the ROS includes the systems of its subordinate combined arms elements. For example, the ROS of a combined arms army, tank army, or army corps includes the ROS of its subordinate combined arms divisions and brigades. In turn, each ROS of the combined-arms division artillery includes several ROSs of the division’s combined arms regiments. Structurally the ROS of the combat arm of combined-arms force elements consists of generic modules:

• ROS of Army group (combined arms army, tank army, army corps) artillery) – The Army group module and several divisional, brigade, regimental, and battalion modules;

• ROS of division artillery – The divisional module and several regimental and battalion modules;

• ROS of brigade (regimental) artillery — The brigade (regimental) module and several battalion modules.³⁰

The emphasis placed upon modernizing existing artillery systems, or introducing new artillery platforms has intensified in recent years, drawing especially upon three factors: lessons drawn from strategic level military exercises, combat operations in Syria (to a lesser extent operations in southeastern Ukraine), and defense ministry officials and military commanders working closely with Russian defense industry companies. The common theme has been to ingrate these systems into the unified information space through the ROS. This has drawn on extensive General Staff analysis of the lessons from artillery use in Syria, as well as strategic-operational exercises such as Tsentr 2019 for example.³¹ Tsentr 2019 tested several elements of Russia’s Armed Forces military capabilities including: widespread use of UAVs, new communications systems, automated C2 systems, electronic warfare (EW) assets, large-scale airborne assault forces, strategic mobility, and further examination of advances in the integration of artillery into the ROS. Equally, military operations in Syria confirmed the advantage in terms of mobility of artillery units equipped with D-30 and 2A65 Msta-B howitzers as examples of towed artillery over other systems mounted on tracked chassis.³²

In 2016, the ROS was tested during combat operations in southeastern Ukraine. The research of the test was conducted by the special technology center of the Mikhailovskaya Artillery Military Academy in St. Petersburg. For the purposes of the combat test of the ROS, 2S1 Gvozdika, 122-mm self-propelled howitzer consisting of three batteries of four guns and a set of aerial reconnaissance, provided by the Orlan-10 UAV. During the test in a combat environment, the following tasks were worked out:

• Defeat of the AN/TPQ-48 radar station;

• Defeat of a group target by artillery division fire;

• Destruction of buildings and fortifications;

• Defeat of enemy targets located near their troops.

The Orlan-10 was used for reconnaissance, target designation, and fire correction, offering an increase in the effectiveness of artillery units by several times. In attacking an unobserved radar firing 122-mm artillery guns, the number of shells required was reduced several-fold from around 200 to less than 40. Defeat of a group target (manpower and firepower) of 400 x 400 meters in size to achieve 30 percent in the degree of destruction, requires expending 2,880 shells. During the application of fire damage, two dugouts and a structure for hiding manpower, two mortars with ammunition were reliably destroyed, and the degree of destruction of the target was at least 30 percent. The consumption of shells: 120.³³

These tried and tested modernization programs focus on unifying systems in the information space to allow the use of artillery and other fires to enhance precision targeting in real-time and execute high-precision fires.³⁴ RViA artillery personnel receive target information from forward spotters and UAVs, with all this data transmitted in real time using the Strelets KRUS. This was tried and tested in Syria. ROS, the Russian variant of network-centric warfare, unites all units and subunits operating on the battlefield through an automated C2 reporting identified targets; the information is gathered from UAVs and electronic intelligence equipment. The data is also transmitted to higher commands.³⁵

In this complex and ongoing process, new artillery systems are being introduced such as the Koalitsiya-SV, while existing artillery units are simply modernized through upgrades. Cold War–legacy systems such as the long-range 2S7 Peon and super-heavy 2S4 Tyulpan mortars, and even the Krasnopol guided munitions have been returned to service after their discontinuation in the mid-1990s. Self-propelled howitzers Koalitsiya-SV and 2S19M2 Msta-S, as well as the multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) Tornado-S and Uragan-M, were created for integration into the information space. However, older systems — such as the 2S1 Akatsiya and 2S3 Gvozdika, in addition to the MLRS Uragan and Grad — need to be modernized. Work continues to update these systems, with an improvement program for the Grad initiated in 2019, to integrate these into the ROS.³⁶

Heavy-duty artillery systems

In early 2018, Russia’s defense ministry opted to comprehensively modernize the 2S7 Peon artillery systems developed in the 1970s. ‘The large-scale modernization of the 203 mm caliber Peon artillery mounts has begun. A key element in updating self-propelled guns capable of hitting enemy targets at ranges up to 50 kilometers will be a more advanced combat fire-control system. The structure of the divisions of heavy-duty artillery systems in the future will include UAVs. They will help aim the artillery at the target’, according to a source in the defense ministry. Viktor Murakhovsky, the editor-in-chief of Arsenal of the Fatherland, considers the ‘digitalization of high-powered artillery control systems as an important element in the rearmament of the Ground Forces. Such modernization unites artillery assets in a single reconnaissance-fire system. Consequently, this reduces the time of preparation and combat use of strike systems. The interval from identifying a target and setting a task for its destruction to a salvo is reduced by three to five times.³⁷

Another illustration of upgrading existing systems for the ROS is the 203-mm self-propelled Malka. Uraltransmash announced in October 2019 the successful modernization of this artillery gun, which Alexei Leonkov, the editor of Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine, describes as one of the most powerful in the world. Leonkov notes the link to the ROS: ‘Now everything is moving to an automated control system in which these types of fire weapons are combined into reconnaissance and fire circuits. That is, the target designation for these complexes can be various reconnaissance systems: both ground and air, which will give instructions to the calculations of these artillery guns, and they will produce high-precision firing.’ Malka fits into this modernization pattern, as Leonkov concludes: ‘As a result of modernization, the artillery installations will work in a single whole with other artillery systems, with multiple rocket launchers and field artillery systems, and [they will] deliver high-precision crushing blows with their entire arsenal’.³⁸

That these feature as part of the long-term planning for the future role of artillery in the Russian Armed Forces was confirmed by Army-General Valery Gerasimov, the Chief of the General Staff, in his annual address to the Academy of Military Sciences, in Moscow, in March 2018. Gerasimov explained, ‘To ensure the speed and continuity of the fire impact on the enemy, reconnaissance-strike and reconnaissance-fire complexes are being created. The integration of reconnaissance-information and information-control systems with weapons systems of military branches and arms is being carried out’, adding, ‘Work is underway to create an interspecific automated reconnaissance and strike system. Their result should be a 2- to 2.5-fold reduction in the time parameters of the fire task solution cycle – from reconnaissance to target destruction. At the same time, the accuracy of the strike [using high-precision weaponry] will be 1.5–2 times [better]’.³⁹

The extent to which the ROS operational-tactical capability includes artillery and other systems, such as coastal missiles, and the constant combat training to further exploit the potential of the ROS, was also demonstrated during a combined-arms military exercise held in Southern Military District (MD) in early April 2021. Subunits from the RViA in the combined-arms formations of Southern MD and coastal forces of the Black Sea Fleet carried out their various tasks in a single reconnaissance and strike system. According to Russia’s defense ministry: ‘In a single tactical concept, the coordinates of training targets were transmitted through automated control systems simultaneously to the command posts of the RViA divisions. The control check involved operational-tactical missile systems OTRK Iskander, multiple launch rocket systems 9K57 Uragan MLRS and 9K515 Tornado-S MLRS, Tulpan self-propelled mortars, and Pion self-propelled guns, 2S33 self-propelled artillery mounts Msta-SM2, as well as coastal missile systems Bastion, Bal and Rubezh’. The Commander of Southern MD, Army-General Alexander Dvornikov, explained: ‘In the process of bilateral company, battalion and regimental tactical exercises, within the framework of the control check, it is necessary to assess the skills of the commanders of the tactical level in managing attached units, their ability to organize fire destruction of targets in the system of reconnaissance and fire complexes, as well as the ability to ensure interaction with the forces of army aviation by regular advanced air gunners.’⁴⁰

The continued importance of artillery in Russian approaches towards modern and future combat operations, and efforts to increase the accuracy and precision of fires, cannot be over-emphasized.⁴¹ The professional Russian military journals are replete with articles analyzing and assessing ways to further develop the combat potential and capabilities of artillery fires.⁴² Central to this process, of course, are efforts to enhance the reconnaissance required for the increased accuracy of artillery fires. By way of illustration, noted Russian artillery specialists Lieutenant-General M.M. Matveevsky and Colonel M.A. Saronov, in an article in Voyennaya Mysl’ published in October 2017, examined organizing and conducting reconnaissance for RViA units in modern operations. Lieutenant-General Mikhail Matveevsky is the commander of the RViA. The authors stress the crucial role played by reconnaissance in this process:

Since rocket forces and artillery play a major role in the effective engagement of the enemy, reconnaissance conducted in their interests acquires the same importance. To date, only the integrated use of all means (organs, types) of operational and tactical reconnaissance (including artillery) will make it possible to realize the combat potential of missile forces and artillery formations in full, since the effectiveness of their use in operations directly depends on the quality of organization and conduct. intelligence, as well as the capabilities of its forces and means to obtain the necessary intelligence information.⁴³

The authors also highlighted the necessity for artillery reconnaissance in real time to provide commanders with accurate target data. They further explain that the ROS for the RViA divides into two parts: the defeat of relatively stationary and the defeat of highly maneuverable targets. Matveevsky and Saronov place emphasis on the high-technology enhancement of reconnaissance through robotization and automation of systems:

It should be noted that the fundamental differences between the promising nomenclature of reconnaissance means (including artillery) from the existing one are: a significant improvement in their combat capabilities in terms of the depth of reconnaissance and operational efficiency due to robotization and automation⁴⁴ of the processes of searching, detecting, recognizing enemy targets, determining their coordinates and intelligence submission; functioning on new physical principles, as well as their combination and integration into the system; inclusion of air reconnaissance complexes with unmanned aerial vehicles in the artillery reconnaissance units.

The issue of collecting, processing, and communicating intelligence information within the framework of the reconnaissance and fire system of missile forces and artillery cannot be ignored. Thus, the fulfillment of tasks for the immediate engagement of enemy targets requires that the cycle of reconnaissance, decision-making, and preparation for the execution of a firing mission does not exceed half of the minimum duration of the stay of objects in place. Consequently, the process of collecting, processing and communicating intelligence information to performers must be automated.⁴⁵

The inherent weight of the importance of artillery in Russian approaches toward future warfare is also apparent in Moscow’s long-term military modernization plans, which place pride of place on the army. Russia’s long-term defense planning process emerged in the mid-1990s and is conducted through the State Armaments Program (SAP) or in Russian, Gosudarstvennaya Programma Razvitiya Vooruzheniy (GPV). A set of classified documents cover planning for the domestic arms industry, R&D, military modernization, and upgrades, covering ten years normally in which the first five are already detailed and enacted through the annual State Defence Orders, Gosudarstvennaya Oboronnyi Zakas (GOZ), which are included in the Federal Budget under different sub-chapter headings directly funding the programs.⁴⁶

In an overview of the GPV to 2027, the CNA analyst Dmitry Gorenburg provides the following summary based on open-source reporting related to Russia’s Ground Forces modernization:

After being largely starved of funding in SAP-2020, the ground forces are expected to get the largest share of funding in SAP-2027. Some sources indicate that over a quarter of the total program budget will go to equipping the Ground Forces and Airborne Forces. This is in part due to Russia’s experience in Ukraine leading to an increased perception that ground forces may be needed in future conflicts, but mostly the result of new armored vehicle and tank designs being ready for serial production. T-90 and T-14 Armata tanks, Kurganets-25 infantry fighting vehicles and Boomerang armored personnel carriers are all expected to enter the force over the next eight years, though numbers of some items such as Armata tanks may be limited due to their high cost of production.

The production of artillery and ground-based missiles has been a bright spot for the ground forces. Deployment of medium-range Iskander missiles is proceeding on schedule, with all units set to be in place by 2019. New Uragan and Tornado-S multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS) are also being deployed beginning in 2017, with purchases expected to continue throughout the duration of SAP-2027. Procurement of the Koalitsiya self-propelled gun started in 2016. It is eventually expected to fully replace the Soviet-era Msta system. New short-range air defense systems will also be procured.

There are more problems with tactical automated control systems for the ground forces. Originally expected to be deployed to 40 brigades by 2020, these remain in field testing in a single division. Reports indicate that the military has mixed feelings about the system and may decide that it needs improvement before it can be widely adopted. In that case, the development of network-centric warfare capabilities may be delayed beyond 2027. In the meantime, the ground forces will continue to receive intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) and electronic warfare systems that have been used to good effect in Syria.⁴⁷

The GPV to 2027 envisages the chief beneficiary as being the Ground Forces. It should receive a new of generation tanks, armored vehicles, APCs, air defense and artillery systems, as well as continued strengthening of ISR and EW capability. There is no public clarification of work in sensitive areas as the military exploitation of AI, for example. But underlying the move to adopt C4ISR in greater levels to 2027 and beyond to 2035, the Russian Ground Forces will retain two central and defining elements: an emphasis on artillery and massed fires (complemented by modernized ISR targeting) and the heavy presence of air defense embedded with the army. Russia’s military modernization to 2027 and beyond is likely to see a surge in high-technology network-enabled assets, as the conventional Armed Forces continue to transition away from Soviet legacy forces and more fully develop informationized approaches to warfare.⁴⁸ This will impact the Ground Forces, not only benefiting from increased range and improved targeting for fires, but also in terms of enhanced C2, and a growing joint inter-service capability. In examining recent Russian operational-strategic military exercises, it is also clear that among numerous elements included in these combat training events is the rehearsal of large-scale inter-state warfare,⁴⁹ with the lead role assigned to the ground forces. In a study of Russia’s ‘major exercises’ in the period 2011-14 by the Swedish analyst Johan Norberg, the author concluded:

First, the exercises were about large-scale interstate wars. In 2011–2014, Russia’s Armed Forces exercised interstate conflict and the transition from peace to war, i.e. starting and conducting large-scale conventional combat operations, often with escalation into using nuclear weapons. Annual strategic and parallel exercises as well as surprise inspections were chances to train for at least one and often two joint inter-service and joint inter-agency operations as well as all-arms operations within service branches. This capability was bigger than any Russian military involvement in conflicts and volatile regions in the former Soviet Union would require. Nuclear forces are often, but not always, trained in connection with annual strategic exercises or major surprise inspections. Thus, in 2015, Russia had been preparing its armed forces for a regional confrontation with possible escalation into using nuclear weapons for at least four years.⁵⁰

Russian interest in exploiting military exercises as a part of the annual training program is certainly by no means new. In the eighteenth century, Russian General Aleksandr Vasilevich Suvorov coined the phrase ‘Tiazhelo v uchenii, legko v boiu,’ which literally translates into ‘difficult on exercise, easy in battle’ or its shorter more memorable form, ‘train hard, fight easy.’ It is a dictum that is pervasive within foreign militaries today.⁵¹ Indeed, Russian and Soviet military traditions have always placed great emphasis on strategic military exercises as the key to military training and education. Consequently, the General Staff uses such exercises to test, rehearse, refine and aid in planning future military operations up to and including large-scale inter-state conflict.⁵² A critical force multiplier in this planning process is the ROS and its interface with the RUS. Together, these may well constitute the makings of a future integrated Russian version of the US/NATO concept of multi-domain warfare.

KRUS Strelets: the Basis of the ROS

As noted above, the ROS functions based on the Strelets intelligence management and communications complex (Kompleks Razvedki Upravleniya i Svyazi – KRUS), which is undoubtedly a priority area for further improvement and modernization rooted in experience gained from using this system in Syria. The St. Petersburg-based Russian defense company, Radioavionika, began working on the Strelets KRUS in 2007, with sets entering service within several years. The Strelets KRUS is designed to automate C2 and information support for tactical military formations at the levels of company, platoon, squad, and down to individual servicemen, as it also interfaces with the Ratnik soldier’s infantry combat system (figure 2). The complex includes a personal computer, satellite radio, VHF radio, rangefinder-goniometer, portable short-range reconnaissance radar station, GLONASS and GPS individual and group navigation system, and a friend or foe identification system. Using this system offers the subunit commander a display of required data concerning his subordinates.⁵³

Figure 2. Integration of Strelets and Ratnik Systems.⁵⁴

The complex is operated by the Ground Forces, mainly among reconnaissance units, the Naval Infantry, the Airborne Forces, and the Aerospace Forces. In the basic set, the weight of the Strelets is 2.4 kg, the data transfer rate is 11 Mbit/s, the maximum range of intercom with a line of sight is at least 1.5 km, the error in determining the values of the current coordinates is no more than 10 m. Strelets KRUS offers the following:⁵⁴

• Automated control of staff and attached units and weapons, effective use of weapons of fire, information support for decisions taken both in peacetime and at all stages of preparation and conduct of hostilities;

• Closed broadband radio communication of the subdivision based on a wireless data transmission network, external communication via a dedicated channel formed by VHF radio stations or satellite communication terminals;

• Management of the personnel of the subdivision using voice communication, formalized commands, and messages, in address and circular modes;

• Displaying information about the tactical situation against the background of an electronic terrain map (EKM) in the dynamics of changing the location of objects;

• Determination and display of the location of the unit’s military personnel against the background of the EKM;

• Solution of a complex of navigation problems;

• Determination of the coordinates of targets and their display against the background of the EKM;

• Obtaining digital photographs of targets;

• Performance of tactical calculations;

• Preparation and exchange of combat control documents;

• Data exchange with the higher level of management;

• Preparation and issuance of target designation for air strikes and artillery fire;

• Adjustment of air strikes and artillery fire;

• Monitoring the condition of servicemen;

• Automated search for the wounded;

• Interface with a wide range of technical means of reconnaissance, observation, and communication.⁵⁵

The Strelets KRUS has already undergone modification and upgrades, particularly to reduce weight and simplify the system features. During a militarily-scientific conference in Moscow in the summer of 2019, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu noted the characteristics and capabilities of the system:

Strelets allows you to hit targets almost on a real scale time, 8–12 minutes after their discovery. The system already has combat experience. In Syria, KRUS Strelets was used by Russian aircraft controllers. If earlier in strike aviation it was considered the norm to lay free-falling bombs in a circle with a radius of 60 meters, then with the use of Strelets the spread of free-falling bombs was reduced to 0–20 meters. When upgrading the complex, the developers taught the recommendations of the Ministry of Defense on the combat experience gained in Syria.⁵⁶

Bartles and Grau correctly note that the Strelets is much more than a computer tablet, as it offers the infrastructure that offers Russian military units the capability to conduct operations in a network-enabled operational environment and enhances the accuracy of fires, including artillery and aircraft-based weapons, and adding naval fires:

Initially, the Strelets was only designed to direct artillery and aircraft fires, but the system has reportedly been upgraded to allow the direction of naval fires, namely the Kh-35 Zvezda (AS-20 Kayak/ SS-N-25 Switchblade/ SSC-6 Sennight), 3M-54 Kalibr (SS-N-27 Sizzler), P-800 Oniks (SS-N-26 Strobile), and presumably the forthcoming 3M22 Tsirkon (SS-N-33) hypersonic cruise missile. The true value of the Strelets is signified by much more than the fielding of a computer tablet that allows the rapid direction of fires. The real value of Strelets is the behind-the-scenes infrastructure that creates the conditions for a network-centric C4ISR system that successfully integrates operators, reconnaissance assets, command elements, and very different fires systems to include ground-based tube artillery and rocket artillery; ballistic and cruise missile; strike aviation; and ship and coastal naval fires. If Strelets truly functions as described, the Russian Armed Forces will need only one system to task fires rapidly at all levels of battle, from front line artillery to deep strike aviation, through rear area missile strikes, truly fielding a unified Reconnaissance-Fire System that facilitates fires at both the tactical and operational depths.⁵⁷

By adding naval fires to the wider coverage of the ROS, the accuracy of fires is markedly enhanced at operational and tactical levels. It is also important to recognize the extent to which the system offers integration of fires to conduct combat operations in near real time. In the earliest stages of introducing the KRUS Strelets, the system was tested during the operational-strategic military exercise, Zapad 2009: KRUS Strelets was used to interact with aviation during the exercise, providing target designations to the Su-24M bombers. It appears to have used the PDU-4 laser rangefinder (range 3-5 km), the coordinates of the target are determined and then transferred to the commander’s personal computer (Figure 3).⁵⁸ During the early experiments with the system, its weight proved to be uncomfortable for individual soldiers. What followed since then, with its modernization and improvements especially linked to weight and data transfer rate, was facilitated by the interaction of military personnel, defense ministry officials, and the manufacturer of the system; an area of cooperative synergy that proved so difficult before the reform process for the Armed Forces launched in late 2008. This modernization process for the further advancement of the ROS also draws upon high-technology artificial intelligence, robotics, and systems automation.

Figure 3. KRUS Strelets⁵⁹

The main priorities for the future modernization and further development of the KRUS Strelets are as follows:

• 1. Use of a communication repeater from the KRUS with its installation in the UAV Orlan-10;

• 2. Integration of a robotic platform into KRUS: the Eskort complex is designed to remotely receive video information from unseen, difficult to access, or dangerous human objects (specifications: fully equipped mass, no more: 2.5 km; maximum dimensions: 195×140 × 65 mm; time of continuous work, no more: 2.5 h, maximum speed of movement: 3 km/h);⁵⁹

• 3. The use of the subscriber terminal Gonets as part of the KRUS. Gonets provides: the exchange of messages between subscribers on a global scale; transmission of data on the location of objects; broadcasting a message to a group of users; transmission of telemetric information from controlled objects to the monitoring center; the ability to quickly provide budget personal communication at any location.⁶⁰

In November 2017, commenting on the practical meaning of finally being able to develop and deploy a functioning ROS, the Ground Forces Deputy Chief of Staff, and Chief of Reconnaissance, Major-General Vadim Marusin highlighted the tremendous advance in achieving speed and accuracy of fires:

Striving for quality and reducing the time indicator of opening fire on the target. The task is one: to detect, transmit, and inflict fire damage as quickly as possible. The algorithm is as follows: reconnaissance means immediately provide information on means of fire destruction - and the target is struck. We have done a lot of experiments in this area −it turns out well. Today this cycle (reconnaissance-fire defeat) is literally ten seconds. We have achieved this.

Marusin explained that the ROS facilitates rapid calculation of the coordinates of targets and instantly transmits this information to the means of fire destruction. He added that research and development in this area also includes a future interspecific automated reconnaissance and strike system (mezhvidovoy avtomatizirovannoy razvedyvatel’no-udarnoy sistemy − MARUS).⁶¹

The Russian defense company AOA VNII Signal is the developer of several systems for controlling the fire of artillery units of the Ground Forces. Signal is tasked with the development of the MARUS.⁶² Alexander Denisov, Director-General of NPO Vysokotochnyye Kompleksy, stresses the network-centric feature of these systems and how it changes Russia’s Armed Forces’ approaches to conducting combat operations: ‘Superiority over the enemy will be achieved through the advantage in obtaining data, mobility, speed of reaction, accurate fire and information impact in real time on numerous objects of its economy, military facilities and with the minimum acceptable risk to our forces and means’.⁶³

AI and robotics

In terms of Moscow’s interests in the application of AI for military purposes, it has largely been trying to catch up with such developments in the United States. For example, one stimulus in energizing this process was the attention in Moscow to the U.S. Department of Defense Army Brigade Combat Team Modernization program for 2009–2034, which planned for the creation and deployment of large numbers of ground-based mobile robotic systems. This was aimed to increase the conventional combat capabilities of the U.S. Armed Forces while reducing casualties in future combat.⁶⁴

More recently, the R&D has been revived, and some progress is evident in fielding AI and robotics for the enhancement of artillery. Russian military specialists in this area consider that robototechnical complexes (robototekhnicheskiye kompleks−RTK) would require the formation of subunits within the Ground Forces Motorized Rifle Battalions (MRB), to provide not only the necessary depth of fire impact on the enemy, but also the ability to quickly disperse artillery in depth in the combat formations of its forces and the necessary massing of fires, and in the depths of the battle formations.⁶⁵ Studies by leading Russian military experts suggest that increasing the capabilities of long-range fire damage by 2.1 times due to technical re-equipment with new artillery systems can increase the combat capabilities of inflicting damage to the opposing side in battle by 40-45 percent.⁶⁶

AI, robotic technology, and automated C2 are important elements in the further evolution of the ROS. This drive already features prominently in the automation and roboticization of field artillery to enhance accurate and timely fires.⁶⁷ Accordingly, in an important article in the authoritative tactical journal of Russia’s defense ministry Armeskiy Sbornik in 2019 on combat robotic complexes, the authors discussed the need for such systems as part of a wider fire-engagement robotic complex.⁶⁸ The authors advocate further automating artillery fires to reduce the required reloading time. They also refer to retrofitting models of weapons⁶⁹ in the existing inventory ‘using modular designs or attachable equipment, which provides their crewless employment in the remote-controlled mode or through the development of specialized military remote-controlled, semi-automatic and automatic robotic complexes.’⁷⁰ In addition, the authors continue:

As of today, validation tests are being conducted and multifunction fire support military robotic complexes, which accomplish combat missions for the destruction of armored and soft targets, and also enemy personnel in visual range of up to 4-6 kilometers are being accepted into the inventory; beginning in 2020, they plan the delivery to the troops the Koalitsiya-SV 2S35 152-millimeter inter-branch artillery complex. In this complex, all of the processes (loading the ammunition load, charging, guidance, and so forth) have been automated. The declared firing range of 70 kilometers will support the accomplishment of hard-kill missions in support of Ground Forces units and formations.⁷¹

Judging from the details offered by these Russian artillery specialists, the extent to which such technologies are being utilized and shaping the future direction of military modernization is laying the basis for system upgrades and development through AI and robotics as a long-term project to boost the accuracy of fires in real time.⁷² According to Alexei Byabenin, Head of Control Systems Department in the Central Research Institute Burevestnik in Nizhniy Novgorod, mechatronics and AI have been used to great effect with the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled gun (152mm), which is automated and has fully robotic features: reception/transmission of information; determining platform coordinates; orientation; barrel guidance; ammunition selection and loading; optical device control; machine gun control; power management.⁷³ Only the motion control element is currently beyond the robotics developed for the Koalitsiya system. While the ROS development has benefited from advanced computers and communications systems and radars, UAVs, and the role played by the KRUS Strelets, it is clear that future network-centric capabilities will be extended through the use of AI, robotics and continued efforts to harness automated C2 and more fully developed C4ISR.⁷⁴

While Russia’s Armed Forces have already benefited from the implementation of the ROS to enhance the accuracy and delivery of fires in real time, work is ongoing to use modern advanced technologies to further refine these capabilities.⁷⁵ The overall direction of this high-technology-driven process is illustrated in Figure 4. The innovative concept, as shown in the graphic, lies in the unifying of the ROS with the MRB and ground mobile robotic systems to increase firing capabilities in a range of 1.3 to 2.3 times, maximizing ammunition use up to two times, while the subunit of the MRB becomes a unit able to independently solve the main reconnaissance and fire missions. Consequently, according to this future course of modernization, the main directions for improving the organizational and staff structure subunits included in individual motorized rifle brigades of the Ground Forces would be: the creation of new robotic reconnaissance and fire systems for artillery units of a motorized rifle battalion; improvement of the management system and the creation of a unified information space and the creation of a modular structure of groupings of forces and means for actions by an evolving situation without changing the organizational structure of the units.⁷⁶

Figure 4. Organizational structure of a motorized rifle battalion with mobile robotic systems.⁷⁵

Colonel (retired) Viktor Litvinenko, widely recognized as one of Russia’s leading authorities on artillery, noted that President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly in 2018 briefly described new models of equipment and weapons that are being supplied to the Armed Forces. In the aftermath of this speech, Litvinenko noted that the terms long-range fire defeat (dal’neye ognevoye porazheniye), and long-range fire engagement (dal’niy ognevoy boy) became commonplace:

Local wars and conflicts of recent years confirm the proposition that the destruction of objects (targets) should take place at distant lines in the shortest possible time due to the high maneuverability of the enemy. The fire weapons of the ground forces of the high-tech ‘partners’ set aside a limited time to engage targets, after which they perform a ‘counterfire maneuver’, i.e. leave the place of execution of the firing mission. All these factors force us to take a fresh look at the organization and conduct of artillery reconnaissance in modern combined arms combat. These factors put forward requirements for the tactical and technical characteristics of modern technical means of reconnaissance and directly indicate that the tendencies of their development will be: range (depth) of reconnaissance; the accuracy of determining the coordinates; the time of detection and passage of information, the reliability of the data obtained and several others.’⁷⁷

In Litvinenko’s view, based upon the recent modernization of Russian artillery and the creation of the ROS, it is vital for the Armed Forces to form a Single Reconnaissance Information Space (Yedinogo Razvedyvatel’nogo Informatsionnogo Prostranstva−YeRIP).⁷⁸ Thus, considering the prospects for the development of YeRIP in the interests of fire destruction, it is necessary to note the main trends in the development of military reconnaissance means. The main trends are:

• An increase in the reconnaissance range, since by now it does not allow opening and correcting 45-50 percent of the enemy’s priority targets;

• Increasing the accuracy of determining the coordinates of targets;

• Reducing the time spent on bringing the obtained information data about the targets of destruction to the commanders of the fire subunits;

• Further automation of the processes of interaction of various intelligence assets in YeRIP and several others.⁷⁹

Russian specialists on exploiting AI for ground-based artillery systems are equally convinced that the long-term direction of further enhancing the speed and accuracy of fires in real time lies in boosting the numbers of UAVs and ground mobile robotic systems, as well as conducting additional experimental work on the ROS. The future modernized ROS, benefiting from AI and robotic technologies must solve the following combat missions:

• High-precision air and ground tactical artillery reconnaissance;

• Reduction of reconnaissance time due to the use of high-precision topographic reference systems up to 15 minutes;

• Improving the accuracy of target designation using ground and air reconnaissance through the use of gyro course indicators with an azimuth determination accuracy of 0.03 degrees. and innovative means of radar reconnaissance, including all-weather small-sized X-band synthetic aperture radar, three-dimensional laser radar, optoelectronic and electronic reconnaissance;

• Fire damage with an increase in the firing capabilities of hitting targets in range by 1.3 - 2.3 times, in terms of the number of ammunition ammunition up to 2 times;

• Improving the guidance accuracy of MLRS and ATGM launchers by using the automated guidance and fire control systems built into the ground mobile robotic systems and the UAS up to 2 times;

• Reduction of ammunition consumption for MRK and UAS by an average of 20 percent with a firing range of up to 10 km;

• Increasing the mobility of reconnaissance and fire weapons up to 2 times, and as a result, increasing survivability when ground mobile robotic systems are at launch (firing) positions;

• Creation of a unified information and control network of air unmanned aerial complexes and ground mobile robotic systems, which allows for the reduction of the time and increase the reliability of the received reconnaissance and ballistic data up to 2 times;

• Reduction of personnel of the MRB subunits.⁸⁰

The development and deployment of the ROS through the utilization of advanced high-technologies, which markedly enhances Russian military capabilities, greatly increases the accuracy and targeting of fires on the modern and future battlefield. This process is set to continue in the long term, as Russia’s Armed Forces adopt and adjust to the challenges of modern network-centric operations conducted in real time and single information space. This is being furthered by the growing application of AI. Moscow’s interest and R&D in the use of AI for military purposes are now well-established as a strategic priority.⁸¹ While the ROS is the chief enabler in this process, benefiting the employment of fires in future Russian combat operations, it is increasingly tied to AI and robotics, as well as automated C2 to improve the speed of military decision-making and the accuracy of fires.⁸² This covers the broader range of Russian military fires, but as noted, it chiefly acts as a force multiplier for artillery, traditionally playing a crucial role in Russian military thought, doctrine, and operations. The ROS has effectively moved Russian artillery systems into the twenty-first century.

Conclusion

Several observations and questions emanate from Russia’s military advances in increasing the accuracy of its fires based on the ROS, utilizing modern high-technologies, but largely drawing on military theoretical concepts developed in the late Soviet era.⁸³ First and foremost, the reform initiated in late 2008 was genuine and gradually moved the modern Russian Armed Forces away from its Soviet legacy, while maintaining sufficient deference to Russian military culture, and successfully transitioned into a modernized digitized structure. This was aimed to increase mobility, tactical flexibility, and accuracy of fires, as well as enhance the speed of C2 and military decision-making.⁸⁴

By developing and introducing the ROS, tested in its combat operations in Ukraine and Syria, as well as refined based on General Staff assessments of lessons from Russia’s annual strategic military exercises, the lethality and accuracy of Russia’s fires − including artillery − has been dramatically improved.⁸⁵ The interconnections have been explained in terms of automated C2 linkages and the basis for the ROS provided by the KRUS Strelets and its envisioned improvements.⁸⁶ This technology, used to enhance fire accuracy on the modern and future battlefield, will permit Russia to field smaller but more lethal forces in a broad range of conflict types requiring the application of hard power. These capabilities also extend across the range of warfighting scenarios, from urban warfare, counter-insurgency, anti-terrorist, or peace-keeping operations.

Despite the adaption of advanced technologies to enhance and greatly improve the accuracy of fires, especially in Russian artillery systems, there is of course considerable continuity in the tactical use of these assets.⁸⁷ Indeed, while the ROS offers the technological basis to conduct operations in real time with the application of accurate fires, this risks over-reliance upon such technology, as well as demanding adjustments in combat training and continued efforts to maximize and exploit the synergy between personnel and the means of fire destruction.

Equally, although Russia’s General Staff study and seek to learn lessons from Russia’s involvement in armed conflicts, more recently focused on Ukraine and Syria, there is a clear distinction between identifying and learning from such lessons. Perhaps the fuller extent to which lessons are implemented in changes toward the conduct of combat operations will only be clarified over time with Moscow’s involvement in future conflicts.⁸⁸ That said, as this analysis of the final construction and use of the ROS has shown, there is considerable evidence that the General Staff influence is present in adjustments and recommendations made based on trial and error, or ‘learning by doing’.⁸⁹

While these changes in Russian military capability mark a major shift in the development of its modern Armed Forces, the increased accuracy of fires or the use of technology to conduct operations in real time in a single information space also raises questions concerning the country’s future defense posture.⁹⁰ These advances, no doubt welcomed by the current political leadership, are complex and offer tools of conventional military capabilities and flexibility that no Russian leadership has previously had at his disposal.⁹¹ Unless the limits and risks are understood by Russia’s senior politicians, together with their destructive impact on the future battlefield, these advances may render a post-Putin leadership less risk-averse in any political crisis with the US/NATO.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Russia Strategic Initiative (RSI) US European Command (EUCOM). The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily represent the views of the Department of Defense or the US government.

Notes on contributors

Roger N. McDermott

Roger N. McDermott is a leading authority on the Russian military. He is Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Department of War Studies, King’s College, London; Research Associate, Institute of Middle East, Central Asia and Caucasus Studies (MECACS), University of St. Andrews, Scotland; Senior Fellow in Eurasian Military Studies, Jamestown Foundation, Washington, DC; Non-Resident Research Fellow, International Center for Defense and Security, Tallinn, Estonia; and guest lecturer on Russian military strategy, Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr in Hamburg, Germany. His most recent book is titled Russia’s Path to the High-Tech Battlespace (2022).

Notes

¹ See: Christopher N. Donnelly, Red Banner: The Soviet Military System in Peace and War (London: Jane’s Information Group 1988).

² V.I. Vypasnyak and O.V. Tikhanychev, ‘O povysheniyi effektivnosti primeneniya vysoko-tochnogo oruzhiya v voyennykh konfliktakh lokal’nogo i regional’nogo masshtaba’, Vestnik Akademiyi Voyennykh Nauk, 4(25) (2008) pp. 43-48.

³ Author interviews by video teleconference (VTC) with retired Russian military officers, Moscow, 3 March 2021.

⁴ I. Rusanov, O. Tikhanychev, and V. Yasenovenko, ‘Razvedyvatel’no-udarniye sistemy VMF: istoricheskaya retrospektiva’, Morskoy Sbornik 3 (2013) pp. 45–50; V.I. Vypasnyak, ‘O realizatsiyi setetsentricheskikh printsipov upravleniya silami i sredstva-mi vooruzhonnoy bor’by v operatsiyakh (boyevykh deystviyakh)’, Voyennaya Mysl 12 (2009) pp. 23–30.

⁵ O.V. Tikhanychev, ‘O roli i meste sistematicheskogo ognevogo vozdeystviya v sovremen-nykh operatsiyakh’, Voyennaya Mysl’, 4 (2016) pp. 39–45; A.Ya. Chernysh, V.S. Morgun, and S.V. Chvarkov, ‘Ognevoye porazheniye protivnika raket-nymi voyskami i artilleriyey v operatsiyakh koalitsionnykh gruppirovok voysk’, Voyennaya Mysl’, 3 (2003), pp. 12–16.

⁶ A.G. Yermishyan, ‘Ideologiya postroyeniya slozhnykh organizatsionno-tekhnicheskikh sistem voyennogo naznacheniya’, Information Bulletin of the Academy of Military Sciences, St. Petersburg branch, 6 (2011), pp. 126–131.

⁷ S.V. Morozov and O.A. Kudrenko, ‘O podkhode k sozdaniyu yedinoy statsionarnomobil’noy avtomatizirovannoy sistemy upravleniya voyskami i oruzhiyem obyedinyonnogo strategicheskogo komandovaniya’, Voyennaya Mysl’, 1 (2013) pp. 126–134; O.A. Kudrenko and S.V. Morozov, ‘Uchyot morfologicheskikh, sintaksicheskikh i stilisticheskikh osobennostey operativnykh dokumentov pri sozdaniyi ASU spetsnaznacheniya’, Voprosy Radioelektroniki 2 (2013) pp. 23–31.

⁸ S.V. Golubev and V.K. Kiryanov, ‘Sovremenniye sistemy upravleniya bespilotnymi letatel’nymi apparatami inostrannykh armiy’, Vestnik Voyenno-Vozdushnoy Akademiyi, Voronezh 2(23) (2015; S.V. Plotnikov and S.V. Golubev, ‘Osobennosti ispol’zovaniya sputnikovykh sistem svyazi dlya informatsionnogo obespecheniya boyevykh deystviy obyedineniy i soyedineniy sukhop-utnykh voysk vooruzhonnykh sil Soyedinyonnykh Shtatov Ameriki’, Vestnik Voyenno-Vozdushnoy Akademiyi, Voronezh, 3(24) (2015); A. Dronov, ‘Vzglyady komandovaniya Bundesvera na primeneniye BLA’, Zarubezhnoye Voyennoye Obozreniye 12 (2014); V. Rusinov, ‘Sostoyaniye i plany razvitiya nazemnykh robototekhnicheskikh kompleksov SShA’, Zarubezhnoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, (3) (2013).

⁹ Author interviews by VTC with Russian military subject matter experts (SMEs), Washington DC, 25 February 2021.

¹⁰ A. Artem’yev and O. Kharchenko, ‘Vozdushnaya razvedka’, Armeskiy Sbornik, 8 pp. 40–45.

¹¹ Vladislav Morenkov and Andrey Tezikov, ‘Istoricheskiy aspekt razvitiya ASU PVO’, Vozdusho-Kosmicheskaya Oborona, 1, http://www.vko.ru/oruzhie/istoricheskiy-aspekt-razvitiya-asu-pvo, February 7 2015; Igor M. Kuptsov, ‘Bor’ba s giperzvukovymi letatelnami apparatami (GZLA): Novaya Zadacha I trebovaniya k sisteme vozdushno-kosmicheskoy oborony (VKO)’, Voyennaya Mysl’, 1 (2011), pp. 10–17;

‘Soyedineniya armii Yuzhnogo voyennogo okruga (YuVO), dislotsirovannyye v Volgogradskoy i Rostovskoy oblastyakh prinimayut uchastiye v dvukhstoronnem komandno-shtabnom uchenii’, Tvzvezda.ru, https://tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201810011602-mil-ruj6tgf.html, 1 October 2018.

¹² Grigoriy Maslov, ‘They Will Divide the Russian Armed Forces by the Compass’, www.infox.ru, 30 April 2010.

¹³ See: Roger McDermott, ‘Russia’s Entry to Sixth Generation Warfare: the ‘Non-Contact’ Experiment in Syria’, The Jamestown Foundation, April 2021.

¹⁴ Aleksey Leonkov, ‘Nash asimmetrichnyy otvet na amerikanskiye setetsentricheskiye voyny’, Zvezdaweekly.ru, https://zvezdaweekly.ru/news/20181041654-460kh.html, 16 October 2018.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Aleksey Ramm and Aleksandr Kruglov, ‘Minoborony razvernet Akatsiyu za 21 mlrd: Obshchevoyskovyye armii pereydut pod avtomatizirovannoye upravleniye v rezhime real’nogo vremeni’, https://iz.ru/761052/aleksei-ramm-aleksandr-kruglov/minoborony-razvernet-akatciiu-za-21-mlrd, Izvestiya, 5 July 2018.

¹⁸ Aleksey Ramm, Aleksey Kozachenko, and Roman Kretsul, ‘Pamyatnaya bigdata: generalam pomozhet iskusstvennyy intellekt’, Izvestiya, https://iz.ru/941925/aleksei-ramm-aleksei-kozachenko-roman-kretcul/pamiatnaia-bigdata-generalam-pomozhet-iskusstvennyi-intellekt, 13 November 2019.

¹⁹ Author interviews by VTC with Russian military SMEs, Washington DC, 25 February 2021.

²⁰ Artilleriyskaya razvedka: uchebnik, Kazan: KVVKU (VI), 2008.

²¹ A.V. Anan’yev and S.V. Filatov, ‘Obosnovaniye neobkhodimosti sozdaniya mezhvidovogo razvedyvatel’noudarnogo kompleksa bespilotnykh letatel’nykh apparatov malogo klassa dlya aviatsionnogo formirovaniya’, Vozdushno-Kosmicheskiye Sily: Teoriya i Praktika, 13 (2020).

²² See: Lester W. Grau and Charles K. Bartles, Russian Artillery Fire Control for Large Scale Combat Operations’, (Fort Leavenworth, KS: FMSO 2018) p. 1.

²³ See: https://dictionary.mil.ru/folder/123101/item/127720/, Accessed 29 March 2021.

²⁴ Aleksei Byabenin, ‘Artilleriyskiye roboty: ot mekhatroniki k iskusstvennomu intellektu’, https://soyuzmash.ru/docs/prez/prez-krrt-230818-2.pdf, Accessed 5 March 2021.

²⁵ Discussed in more detail below.

²⁶ Lester Grau and Charles K. Bartles, ‘Russian Artillery Fire Control for Large Scale Combat Operations’, Op.Cit., p. 9.

²⁷ Author interviews by video teleconference (VTC) with retired Russian military officers, Moscow, March 3, 2021.

²⁸ I.N. Fomin, Teoreticheskiye osnovy planirovaniya artilleriyskoy razvedki (SPb: VAU 2000).

²⁹ Krasnaya Armiya i Vtoraya Mirovaya voyna. Rech’ i vystupleniya I.V.Stalina na priyeme v chest’ vypusknikov voyennykh akademiy 5 maya 1941 goda, http://army.armor.kiev.ua/hist/stalin-5-5-41.shtml, Accessed 27 March 2021.

³⁰ Lester Grau and Charles K. Bartles, ‘Russian Artillery Fire Control for Large Scale Combat Operations’, Op.Cit., P. 10.

³¹ Aleksandr Khramchikhin, ‘Test na loyal’nost’ Na ucheniyakh Tsentr-2019 kazhdaya strana rabotala po svoim tselyam’, Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, https://www.vpk-news.ru/articles/52889, 8 October 2019.

³² See: Roger McDermott, ‘Russia Tests Network-Centric Warfare in Tsentr 2019’, Eurasia Daily Monitor, 16(131), https://jamestown.org/program/russia-tests-network-centric-warfare-in-tsentr-2019/, 25 September 2019.

³³ ‘O sozdanii razvedki i ognya kompleks s BPLA Orlan-10 dlya vypolneniya osobo otvetstvennykh zadach’, Tsentr Spetsial’nykh Tekhnologiy Voyennoy Artilleriyskoy Akademii Rossiyskoy Federatsii (St. Petersburg, 2017).

³⁴ A.S. Vorob’yev and V.S. Morozov, Sbor i obrabotka razvedyvatel’nykh svedeniy v artilleriyskikh shtabakh (SPb: VAU 2002); A.S. Vorob’yev, Osnovy matematicheskogo modelirovaniya protsessov funktsionirovaniya sil i sredstv artilleriyskoy razvedki (SPb.: VAA 1997).

³⁵ Khramchikhin, ‘Test na loyal’nost’ Na ucheniyakh Tsentr-2019 kazhdaya strana rabotala po svoim tselyam’, Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kuryer, Op.Cit.

³⁶ Ibid; ‘Dal’noboynyy Pion poluchit tsifrovoye tseleukazaniye’, Topwar.ru, https://topwar.ru/134885-dalnoboynyy-pion-poluchit-cifrovoe-celeukazanie.html, 30 January 2018.

³⁷ Dal’noboynyy Pion poluchit tsifrovoye tseleukazaniye’, Ibid.

³⁸ ‘Pushki-mastodonty. Zachem Rossiya moderniziruyet Malki i Tyul’pany’, RIA Novosti, https://ria.ru/20191006/1559442060.html, 6 October 2019.

³⁹ ‘Genshtab: osobennost’’u konfliktov budushchego stanet primeneniye robotov I kosmicheskikh sredstv’, TASS, https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/5062463, 24 March 2018.

⁴⁰ ‘Podrazdeleniya raketnykh voysk i artillerii YuVO v ramkakh kontro’’noy proverki ob’yedinili v yedinyy razvedyvate’’no-ognevoy kompleks’, https://function.mil.ru/news_page/country/more.htm?id=12352256@egNews, 2 April 2021.

⁴¹ Barkovskiy A.F, Teoreticheskiye osnovy upravleniya udarami i ognem raketnykh voysk i artillerii: Uchebnik. – SPb: MVAA, 2005.

⁴² A.I. Chuprin and A.A. Polyakov, ‘Analiz boyevykh vozmozhnostey otechestvennykh i zarubezhnykh razvedyvatel’no-ognevykh kompleksov pri vypolnenii spetsial’nykh operatsiy’, Intellektual’nyye sistemy, upravleniye i mekhatronika, 2018; M.M. Matveyevskiy, ‘Raketnyye voyska i artilleriya. Razvitiye form i sposobov boyevogo primeneniya’, Armeskiy Sbornik 4 (2017).

⁴³ Lieutenant-General M.M. Matveevsky, Colonel M.A. Saronov, ‘Organizatsiya i vedeniye razvedki v interesakh boyevogo primeneniya raketnykh voysk i artillerii v sovremennykh operatsiyakh’, Voyennya Mysl’, https://vm.ric.mil.ru/Stati/item/117170/, October 2017.

⁴⁴ Author’s emphasis.

⁴⁵ M.M. Matveevsky and Colonel M.A. Saronov, ‘Organizatsiya i vedeniye razvedki v interesakh boyevogo primeneniya raketnykh voysk i artillerii v sovremennykh operatsiyakh’, Op. Cit.

⁴⁶ Oxenstierna, Susanne, and Bengt-Goran Bergstrand, ‘Defence Economics’, in Carolina Vendil Pallin (Ed), Russian Military Capability in a Ten-Year Perspective - 2011 (Stockholm: Swedish Defence Resarch Agency 2011), pp. 43–64.

⁴⁷ Dmitry Gorenburg, ‘Russia’s Military Modernization Plans: 2018-2027’, Russian Military Blog, https://russiamil.wordpress.com/2017/11/27/russias-military-modernization-plans-2018-2027/, 27 November 2017.

⁴⁸ Russia’s Armed Forces is currently modernizing all of its reconnaissance assets: UAVs (Orlan-10, Eleron-3SV, Granat-1, Forpost); signal intelligence (Sbor-1M SIGINT Geolocator); counter battery radar (Aistenok, Zoopark-1M; acoustic location (AZK-7M acoustic location complex); electro-optical (PRP-4A mobile reconnaissance station, LPR-2/LPR-4 laser range finder); ground surveillance radar (GSR) (SBR-5, PSNR-8M, Kredo-1C, SNAR-10M1); however, there is little information publicly available on planning for space-based ISR. Lester W. Grau and Charles K. Bartles, ‘Russian Artillery Fire Control for Large Scale Combat Operations’, PPT Presentation, Accessed 10 March 2021.

⁴⁹ Author’s emphasis.

⁵⁰ Johan Norberg, Training to Fight– Russia’s Major Military Exercises 2011–2014’, (Stockholm: FOI 2015) p, 61.

⁵¹ Bruce Menning, ‘Train Hard Fight Easy: The Legacy of A. V. Suvorov and his ‘Art of Victory’, Air University Review, (November-December 1986), http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1986/nov-dec/menning.html, Accessed on 19 October 2020.

⁵² Author interviews by VTC with Russian military SMEs, Berlin, 17 March, 2021.

⁵³ O.Yu Kashirina, Ye.I. Kashirina V.V. Kulakov, and V.A. Shamanov, ‘Osnovnyye napravleniya razvitiya perspektivnykh avtomatizirovannykh kompleksov v interesakh Sukhoputnykh voysk’, Izvestiya Instituta inzhenernoy fiziki, 4(54) (2019); A.V. Polyanskov and M.S. Spirin, ‘Sistemnyye napravleniya razvitiya razvedyvatel’no-informatsionnogo obespecheniya podsistemy upravleniya raketnymi voyskami i artilleriyey yedinoy sistemy upravleniya takticheskogo zvena’, Nauka i Voyennaya Bezopasnost’, 3(3) (2015).

⁵⁴ A.V. Karpenko, ‘Kompleks takticheskogo zvena razvedki upravleniya i svyazi (krus) “strelets,”’ Bastian-opk.ru, http://bastion-opk.ru/strelec-asu/, 16 November 2019.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ Ibid.

⁵⁷ Lester Grau and Charles K. Bartles, ‘Russian Artillery Fire Control for Large Scale Combat Operations’, Op.Cit., p. 10.

⁵⁸ V.N. Krasil’nikov, A.N., Kozar, V.S. Moiseyev, and O.V. Krasil’nikov, ‘Perenosnyye kompleksy avtomatizirovannogo upravleniya ognem artillerii takticheskogo zvena’, Kazanskoye vyssheye artilleriyskoye komandnoye uchilishche (voyennyy institut) imeni marshala artillerii M.N. Chistyakova. Izdatel’stvo Otechestvo, 2009.

⁵⁹ Karpenko, ‘Kompleks takticheskogo zvena razvedki upravleniya i svyazi (krus) “strelets,”’ Op.Cit.

⁶⁰ Karpenko, ‘Kompleks takticheskogo zvena razvedki upravleniya i svyazi (krus) “strelets,”’ Op. Cit.

⁶¹ General Marusin compares the Strelets to its closest foreign analog as the US Army’s Remotely Monitored Battlefield Sensor System—REMBASS: Aleksandr Stepanov, ‘Nayti i unichtozhit’ za sekundy: kak rabotayet voyennaya razvedka’, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, http://www.mk.ru/politics/2017/11/02/nayti-i-unichtozhit-za-sekundy-kak-rabotaet-voennaya-razvedka.html, November 2, 2017.

⁶² The All-Russian Scientific Research Institute Signal (VNII Signal) Joint Stock Company located in Kovrov, to High-Precision Systems holding of Rostec State Corporation. According to the company website: “VNII Signal performs research and development in the following areas: Artillery fire-control systems; Land/marine/airborne laying and stabilization systems; Navigation and survey systems; Hydrostatic transmissions, electrohydraulic control systems and hydraulic machines; Robotics. VNII Signal, https://vniisignal.ru/en, accessed 14 April 2021.

⁶³ Aleksandr Denisov and Oleg Falichev, ‘V nashikh razrabotkakh – samyye posledniye dostizheniya nauchnoy mysli Denisov’, Voyenno Promyshlennyy Kur’yer, https://vpk-news.ru/articles/48294, February 12, 2019.

⁶⁴ N.A. Rudianov and V.S. Khrushchev, ‘Obosnovaniye oblika boyevykh i obespechivayushchikh robototekhnicheskikh kompleksov Sukhoputnykh voysk’, Inzhenerniy Zhurnal: Nauka i Innovatsiyi 8 (20) (2013), pp. 937–944.

⁶⁵ S.A. Mosiyenko and V.I. Lokhtin, Kontseptsiya postroyeniya nazemnogo robototekhnicheskogo udarnogo kompleksa. Izdaniye vtoroye, dopolnennoye (Moscow: Izd-vo Sampoligrafist 2014); S.A. Mosiyenko, Nazemnyye robototekhnicheskiye udarnyye i razvedyvatel’nyye kompleksy dlya takticheskikh podrazdeleniy Sukhoputnykh voysk (Moscow: Izd-vo Sampoligrafist 2014); S.A. Mosiyenko, V.I. Lokhtin, and V.G. Arsen’yev, Razrabotka razvedyvatel’no-ognevoy sistemy motostrelkovogo batal’ona s mobil’nymi robototekhnicheskimi kompleksami. – Mobil’nyye robototekhnicheskiye kompleksy. Sbornik statey (Moscow: Izd-vo Sampoligrafist 2014).

⁶⁶ S.A. Mosiyenko and V.I. Lokhtin, Kontseptsiya postroyeniya nazemnogo robototekhnicheskogo udarnogo kompleksa. Izdaniye vtoroye, dopolnennoye (Moscow: Izd-vo Sampoligrafist 2014); S.A. Mosiyenko, Nazemnyye robototekhnicheskiye udarnyye i razvedyvatel’nyye kompleksy dlya takticheskikh podrazdeleniy Sukhoputnykh voysk (Moscow: Izd-vo Sampoligrafist 2014).

⁶⁷ I.V. Demidyuk, ‘Problemniye voprosy i perspektivy sozdaniya i sovershenstvovaniya kompleksov sredstv avtomatizatsiyi upravleniya ognyom v usloviyakh primeneniya bespilotnykhletatel’nykh apparatov’, Sovremennoye sostoyaniye i napravleniya razvitiya uchebnotrenirovochnykh sredstv dlya podgotovki spetsialistov Raketnykh voysk i Artilleriyi, Mikhailovskaya (St. Petersburg: Military Artillery Academy Press, 2018) pp. 666–670; V.I. Babichev, A.V. Ignatov, Ya.S., Pyatnitsky, and A.V. Shigin, ‘Avtomatizirovannaya ognevaya sistema na baze bespilotnogo letatel’nogo apparata (BLA) s tseleukazaniyem’, Voprosy Oboronnoy Tekhniki, Series 16: Tekhnicheskiye Sredstva Protivodeystviya Terrorizmu, 78 (2014.)

⁶⁸ Reserve Colonel S. Zyuzin, Lieutenant-Colonel S. Umerenkov, Major S. Shadrin, ‘Voyuyut roboty’, Armeskiy Sbornik, May 2019, pp.15-23.

⁶⁹ Author’s emphasis.

⁷⁰ Ibid.

⁷¹ Reserve Colonel S. Zyuzin, Lieutenant-Colonel S. Umerenkov, Major S. Shadrin, ‘Voyuyut roboty’, Armeskiy Sbornik, May 2019, pp. 15–23.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Byabenin, ‘Artilleriyskiye roboty: ot mekhatroniki k iskusstvennomu intellektu’, Op.Cit.

⁷⁴ V.V. Taletsky, A.A. Petrov, and N.V. Medvedev, ‘Perspektivniye kompleksniye trenazhorniye sredstva dlya podgotovki podrazdeleniy Raketnykh voysk i Artilleriyi’, Sovremennoye sostoyaniye i napravleniya razvitiya uchebnotrenirovochnykh sredstv dlya podgotovki spetsialistov Raketnykh voysk i Artilleriyi, Mikhailovskaya (St. Petersburg: Military Artillery Academy Press 2018) pp. 724–726; S.A. Bakaneyev, ‘Robototekhnicheskiye kompleksy voyennogo naznacheniya dlya Raketnykh voysk i Artilleriyi Sukhoputnykh voysk’, Noviy Oboronniy Zakaz: Strategiyi 2 (44) (2017), pp. 46-51.

⁷⁵ Sergey Mosiyenko, ‘Razvedyvatel’no-ognevaya sistema motostrelkovogo batal’ona sukhoputnykh voysk na baze mobil’nykh robototekhnicheskikh kompleksov’, Arms-expo.ru, https://www.arms-expo.ru/articles/armed-forces/razvedyvatelno-ognevaya-sistema-motostrelkovogo-batalona-sukhoputnykh-voysk-na-baze-mobilnykh-roboto/, 19 June 2016.

⁷⁶ Ibid.

⁷⁷ V. Litvinenko, ‘Perspektivy primeneniya artilleriyskikh sredstv razvedki v yedinom razvedyvatel’nom informatsionnom prostranstve’, Armeskiy Sbornik, http://army.ric.mil.ru/Stati/item/115354/, 10 May 2018.

⁷⁸ Litvinenko outlines this as consisting of the following: “the composition and capabilities of automated surveillance systems and reconnaissance means must correspond to the volume of reconnaissance tasks necessary for the effective management and use of means of fire destruction; it is necessary to carry out a mandatory periodic review (confirmation) by intelligence agencies of the systems and means of reconnaissance of all objects assigned for fire destruction, their location or the nature of actions; the opening of enemy targets, and, first of all, reconnaissance signs of fire engagement targets must be carried out to the required depth and ensure their guaranteed recognition and classification; for the reliable use of artillery fire, it is necessary that errors in determining the coordinates of targets in the interests of fire for barrel artillery do not exceed 10–20 m; for MLRS 50–70 m; when using homing (guided) ammunition 80–120 m; all reconnaissance information should be stored in a certain set of databases, which are the functional core of the information support of the commander and his means of destruction. Ibid.

⁷⁹ Ibid.

⁸⁰ Mosiyenko, ‘Razvedyvatel’no-ognevaya sistema motostrelkovogo batal’ona sukhoputnykh voysk na baze mobil’nykh robototekhnicheskikh kompleksov’, Arms-expo.ru, Op.Cit.

⁸¹ See: ‘Katalog nazemnykh voyennykh robotov razlichnogo naznacheniya’,http://robotrends.ru/robopedia/katalog-nazemnyh-voennyh-robotov-razlichnogo-naznacheniya, Robotrends, accessed September 20, 2019; Natsional’naya strategiya razvitiya iskusstvennogo intellekta (II) na period do 2030 goda, (National Strategy for the Development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for the Period Until 2030), Garant.ru, https://www.garant.ru/products/ipo/prime/doc/72738946/, 14 October, 2019; Sam Bendett, ‘Sneak Preview: First Draft of Russia’s AI Strategy’, Defence One, https://www.defenceone.com/technology/2019/09/whats-russias-national-ai-strategy/159740/, 30 September, 2019.

⁸² ‘Dal’noboynyy Pion poluchit tsifrovoye tseleukazaniye’, Op.Cit; ‘Genshtab: osobennost’’u konfliktov budushchego stanet primeneniye robotov i kosmicheskikh sredstv’, Op.Cit; Stepanov, ‘Nayti i unichtozhit’ za sekundy: kak rabotayet voyennaya razvedka’, Moskovskiy Komsomolets, Op.Cit.

⁸³ See: Mary C. Fitzgerald, ‘Evolving Russian Blueprints for the New RMA: 2000-2025’,in Dr. R. Matthews, ed., Managing the RMA, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2001; Mary C. Fitzgerald, ‘The Impact of New Technologies on Soviet Military Thought’, in Roy Allison, ed., Radical Reform in Soviet Defense Policy Under Gorbachev, London, England: Macmillan Press, 1991; Mary C. Fitzgerald, ‘The Strategic Revolution Behind Soviet Arms Control’, Arms Control Today, 17(5), 1987.

⁸⁴ Oleg Vladykin, ‘Zapad-2017 natselen na zashchitu Vostoka’, Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, http://nvo.ng.ru/realty/2017-09-15/1_965_west2017.html, September 15, 2017; ‘Pochemu Zapad-2017 vyzval isteriyu na Zapade’, Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, http://nvo.ng.ru/gpolit/2017-09-08/2_964_nvored.html; ‘Sily PVO Zapadnogo voyennogo okruga razvernulis’ v novykh rayonakh na ucheniyakh Zapad-2017’, TASS, http://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/4567491, September 16, 2017; ‘Kompleks upravleniya Sozvezdiye ispytan na uchenii Kavkaz-2016’, https://topwar.ru/100528-kompleks-upravleniya-sozvezdie-ispytan-na-uchenii-kavkaz-2016.html, September 11, 2016; ‘Tsentr 2015’, http://politrussia.com/vooruzhennye-sily/tsentr-sily-510/, September 16, 2015; ‘Krupneyshiye ucheniya Tsentr-2015 startovali na poligonakh TsVO’, TVZvezda, https://tvzvezda.ru/news/forces/content/201509141042-3qno.htm, September 14, 2015; Yury Gavrilov, ‘Prikaz po Tsentru’, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, https://rg.ru/2015/09/14/ucheniya-site.html, September 14, 2015; Oleg Vladykin, ‘Ucheniye Tsentr-2015 zavershilos’ udarno’, Nezavisimoye Voyennoye Obozreniye, http://www.ng.ru/armies/2015-09-21/2_uchenie.html, September 21, 2015.

⁸⁵ Author interviews by video teleconference (VTC) with retired Russian military officers, Moscow, March 3, 2021.

⁸⁶ Karpenko, ‘Kompleks takticheskogo zvena razvedki upravleniya i svyazi (krus) ‘strelets’,’ Op. Cit;

Stepanov, ‘Nayti i unichtozhit’ za sekundy: kak rabotayet voyennaya razvedka’, Op.Cit.

⁸⁷ See: Anderson, James, ‘Russian Artillery: Adapting Ancient Principles to Modern Paradigms, Part 2’,OEE Red Diamond 8, No. 11, November 2017,pp. 18-31; Bellamy, Chris, Red God of War: Soviet Artillery and Rocket Forces, London: Brassey’s Defence Publishers, 1986.

⁸⁸ Lester W. Grau and Charles K. Bartles, Russian Way of War: Force Structure, Tactics, and Modernization of Russian Ground Forces (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Foreign Military Studies Office 2016); Anton Lavrov, ‘Aircraft, Tanks and Artillery in the Donbass’, in Colby Howard and Ruslan Pukhov, eds., Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine, Second Edition, (MN: East View Press 2015), pp. 228–35; A. Cohen and Robert Hamilton, The Russian Military and the Georgian War: Lessons and Implications, Monograph, Strategic Studies Institute, U.S Army War College, Carlisle, PA, http://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/pdffiles/pub1069.pdf, 2011; Svante E. Cornell, and S. Frederick Starr, eds., The Guns of August 2008: Russia’s War in Georgia (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2009).

⁸⁹ See: Dmitry (Dima) Adamsky, ‘Russian Campaign in Syria—Change and Continuity in Strategic Culture’, Journal of Strategic Studies, 43(2), 2020, pp. 104–125.

⁹⁰ Colonel S.G. Chekinov (Res.), Lieutenant-General S.A. Bogdanov (Ret), ‘Evolyutsiya sushchnosti i soderzhaniya ponyatiya ‘voyna’ v XXI stoletii’, Voyennaya Mysl’ 1 (2017), pp. 30–43.

⁹¹ Zyuzin, Umerenkov, Shadrin, ‘Voyuyut roboty’, Op.Cit.